A pestilence
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The Hebrew noun dever names plague or pestilence, often appearing with famine and sword in covenant warnings and prophetic judgment. It can describe widespread deadly disease among people or livestock, a danger brought into prayer, or a force from which the psalmist seeks deliverance.
Reader summary
Full entry for דֶּבֶר (H1698) · Open the biblical lexicon
The Hebrew noun dever names plague or pestilence, often appearing with famine and sword in covenant warnings and prophetic judgment. It can describe widespread deadly disease among people or livestock, a danger brought into prayer, or a force from which the psalmist seeks deliverance.
The BSB source-word alignment has 49 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include and plague (18), plague (11), a plague (6), by plague (2), with a plague (2).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Exodus 5:3. Its strongest book concentrations include Jeremiah (17), Ezekiel (12), 2 Chronicles (3), Exodus (3).
The Hebrew noun dever names plague or pestilence, often appearing with famine and sword in covenant warnings and prophetic judgment. It can describe widespread deadly disease among people or livestock, a danger brought into prayer, or a force from which the psalmist seeks deliverance. David's census narrative records enormous loss from plague, Solomon's temple prayer anticipates plague and sickness among many forms of distress, Jeremiah gives a specific survival instruction during Jerusalem's siege, and Hosea sets plague language beside ransom from Sheol and redemption from death.
These texts do not authorize teachers to declare that a modern outbreak proves the personal guilt of patients or a targeted community. A canonical judgment setting is not a substitute for epidemiology, medical diagnosis, or public-health evidence. Psalm 91 invites trust but must not be used to promise infection immunity or reject vaccination, treatment, ventilation, isolation, or other prudent care.
Responsible teaching grieves the dead, protects vulnerable people, follows verified health guidance, supports workers and families, and speaks of judgment only within the passage's stated covenant and prophetic frame.
Dever denotes pestilence or deadly plague, frequently paired with sword and famine. Covenant setting, prophetic audience, affected population, and literary function distinguish judgment, communal prayer, siege warning, lament, deliverance, and hope beyond death.
When famine or plague comes upon the land, or blight or mildew or locusts or grasshoppers, or when their enemy besieges them in their cities, whatever plague or sickness may come,
Solomon's temple prayer includes plague and sickness among disasters that may bring people to petition God.
‘If disaster comes upon us—whether sword or judgment, plague or famine—we will stand before this temple and before You, for Your Name is in this temple. We will cry out to You in our distress, and You will hear us and save us.’
The worshiping community remembers that it may cry to God when sword, judgment, plague, or famine arrives.
So the Lord sent a plague upon Israel from that morning until the appointed time, and seventy thousand of the people from Dan to Beersheba died.
The census narrative records a plague across Israel and the deaths of seventy thousand people.
Whoever stays in this city will die by sword and famine and plague, but whoever goes out and surrenders to the Chaldeans who besiege you will live; he will retain his life like a spoil of war.
During Jerusalem's siege, Jeremiah says those remaining face sword, famine, and plague while surrender preserves life.
Nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the calamity that destroys at noon.
The psalm names pestilence in darkness and destructive calamity at noon within its confession of refuge.
I will ransom them from the power of Sheol; I will redeem them from Death. Where, O Death, are your plagues? Where, O Sheol, is your sting? Compassion is hidden from My eyes.
Hosea places the plagues of Death beside questions about ransom from Sheol and redemption from death.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Hebrew word. Divine instrument of judgment; sweeping mortality sent by God to punish covenant violation or idolatry
Divine instrument of judgment; sweeping mortality sent by God to punish covenant violation or idolatry
a pestilence BDB: pestilence Usage: murrain, pestilence, plague.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 3 selected witnesses from 49 lexical occurrence verses.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Dever places infectious catastrophe inside Israel's prayer, judgment, and hope without giving later readers permission to explain every outbreak. First Kings 8 anticipates famine, plague, crop disease, siege, and sickness, then directs sufferers toward prayer and God's knowledge of the heart. The list recognizes complex communal distress rather than teaching a single human diagnosis for each case.
Second Chronicles 20 remembers that worshipers can cry to God when disaster comes, while practical obedience and communal action continue in the chapter. Second Samuel 24 records seventy thousand deaths after David's census and preserves the king's confession that the people are sheep who should not bear his punishment. Leaders must not make population suffering abstract or conceal their own responsibility.
Jeremiah 21 gives a particular siege instruction in which leaving the city preserves life; it cannot be generalized into submission to every aggressor. Psalm 91 confesses refuge amid unseen pestilence but should deepen faithful care, not create a test of immunity. Hosea's difficult question joins plague, Sheol, death, redemption, and judgment in its own prophetic movement.
Faithful application mourns, tells the truth, follows sound medical evidence, protects high-risk neighbors, supports health workers, and receives resurrection hope without assigning secret guilt to the sick.
1Kgs.8.37
Dever transliterates Hebrew דֶּבֶר. The masculine noun commonly appears in coordinated lists with sword and famine and can function as the means of death or the named calamity; surrounding verbs identify sending, dying, surviving, praying, or receiving deliverance.
New Testament plague, sickness, compassion, healing, civic responsibility, and resurrection texts use different Greek vocabulary and settings. Canonical hope may guide Christian care during outbreaks, but it does not convert dever into a tool for diagnosing modern patients or predicting public-health events.